Description: Nicholas Guyatt offers a completely new understanding of a central question in American history: how did Americans come to think that God favored the United States above other nations? Making sense of previously diffuse debates on manifest destiny, millenarianism, and American mission, Providence and the Invention of the United States explains the origins and development of the idea that God has a special plan for America. The benefits and costs of this idea deserve careful consideration.
Brief description: Nicholas Guyatt is Assistant Professor of History at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia. He has studied at Cambridge University (B.A., M. Phil.) and Princeton Univeristy (Ph.D.). This is his first academic monograph, but his fourth book; a work on apocalyptic Christianity will also be published in 2007. He writes about American history for the London Review of Books and the Nation.
Review Quotes: "In a work of admirable scope and learning, Nicolas Guyatt explores the transatlantic roots and multiple expressions of Americans' understanding of God's role in national life. He convincingly shows that providential ideas not only validated political goals but helped shape them, closing off some paths of development just as they opened others. Providence and the Invention of the United States is a superb contribution to our understanding of how American contested their national destiny from before the Revolution to the era of the Civil War."
-Richard Carwardine, St. Catherine's College, University of Oxford